Reconnecting with S.J. County roots

STOCKTON - Jay Wilverding headed to Stockton last Tuesday to interview for a new job.

Zachary K. Johnson

STOCKTON - Jay Wilverding headed to Stockton last Tuesday to interview for a new job.

And since it was for a vacancy in the elected office of San Joaquin County Auditor-Controller, that meant the interview was conducted alongside everybody else left vying for the job in a meeting streaming over the Internet in front of a live audience and the county Board of Supervisors.

It was a grueling process.

But it was a familiar greeting for Wilverding as he drove into downtown Stockton for what would be a successful job interview. The Pennsylvania transplant's first job in the state and out of college was at a Stockton bank in the 1980s. And it was here he got his first pair of contact lenses from Zeiter Eye Medical Group.

"I was pleasantly surprised that it was right on the corner when I pulled into the parking garage," Wilverding said.

Born in Scranton, Pa., he had moved to Manteca after graduating with a degree in accounting.

Wilverding, 54, lives in Martinez but has maintained ties in San Joaquin County. His parents live here, and he still owns a home in Manteca. It's vacant and ready for him and his wife to move in. Living in the county and registering to vote is a requirement for the job.

He's also a frequent visitor to Stockton Metropolitan Airport. Wilverding has had his pilot's license since 2004, and his plane is serviced by Top Gun Aviation at Stockton Metro, he said.

From that first job at American Savings and Loan in Stockton, which he started in 1981, Wilverding went on to different posts in the private sector before taking his first government job in the tax division of the Contra Costa County Auditor's Office in 2010, where he was chief accountant.

There's a big difference between working in the public and private sectors, he said. For one thing, there's no product in the public sector.

And the accounting practices are different, too, he said.

The similarities between auditor's offices in Contra Costa and San Joaquin counties probably outweigh the differences, he said. They operate on the same cycles, and the overall function is the same.

The San Joaquin County Auditor-Controller's Office acts as a hub, he said, in particular when it comes to property taxes. With the Assessor's Office and the Tax Collector's Office, it's in the middle of the annual process of determining, collecting and allocating the revenue from property taxes used to keep local governments running.

Wilverding said he didn't plan on coming in and making sweeping changes, and that it's important to come in and learn the operation.

"The new-sheriff-in-town thing - that's not me," he said, noting he researched the department and its financial reports.

"Somebody in this county has done a pretty good job, ... (and) potentially messing that up is not what I want."

Wilverding was appointed midterm to replace Adrian Van Houten, who retired from the office last year. Wilverding plans to stand for election in 2014 to hold onto the office after the current term, which ends in January 2015. He has never run for public office.